Ukraine preparing to refine Azerbaijani oil

Ukraine’s Ukrtatnafta PJSC is preparing for refining the first batch of Azerbaijani Azeri Light oil in the volume of 80,000 tons at the country’s Kremenchug refinery, the company said, Trend reports.

Ukraine has already received the batch in late December 2016.

In general, Ukrtatnafta, which is the operator of the Kremenchug refinery, expects that the total volume of such supply will reach 1.3 million tons in 2017.

"The project implementation has become possible due to the agreements between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Ukraine to restore the supply of Azerbaijani oil to Ukrainian refineries," the message says.

Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR is an oil supplier.

"SOCAR has been already supplying Iranian gas condensate to Ukrtatnafta since October 2016,” the message said. “Ukrtatnafta increased oil refining by 11 percent in 2016 due to the implementation of the project for the diversification of energy supplies. According to the preliminary plans of the company, oil refining is expected to be increased by more than 41 percent."

The volumes of oil transportation via Ukrtransnafta’s oil pipelines will also increase due to the project implementation, the company said.